Ok so this campaign never fails to jarate me off on expert because it so flippin hard lol, sems lie the director is on overdirve in this campaign and it really hows repetitive l4d1 infected are. smoker, hunter, boomer, smoker hunter boomer attack sover and over to the point of ad-nausea. There is bad pacing and breaks in this campaign. Although I can hold my ground on this campaign, in pub games most player can't do it and get killed every 20 feet from the safehouse. Also its not very pretty either. (art &* graphics) Quite a bit of ugly low res textures and opaque fog at 20 feet. I can see why this is the least played campaign in the whole game. I would like to know how others feel about this campaign. :P

Caslon

02-19-2012, 10:44 PM

I'm one of those few who prefer the basic 4 L4D maps. To me, the two add on campaigns were made to lead the masses where they wanted them to go, L4D2.

HawkeSolaris

02-19-2012, 11:43 PM

I'm not sure to be honest. It seemed like a solid campaign, but I still felt the original 4 maps were better than it. The ending is really difficult in my opinion with the 3 tanks though- sacrificing someone is really hard when they get incapped the moment they step off the bridge hehe.
As for the fog, I have no problem with it personally. Just wish the map was set at night rather than sunset where it's still bright enough to remind me of that overrated sequel...
As for the Director, he gets predictable if you play enough. Only expert mode has me surprised at how sadistic and malicious the Director can often be. In easy mode, he's incredibly generous and rewarding, and picking you back up if you had a bad fight. In expert, he's more likely to come up to you when you're incapacitated and offer a hand, partially lift you up before slamming on the floor again.

Caslon

02-19-2012, 11:52 PM

The Director lays off too heavy a gameplay if you go forward on maps. If the team keeps dying, the Director isn't going to reward the team on the repeat start as if they had done it right in the first place.

I'm just saying the Director is the Director, lol. It has an attitude of sorts.

CosmicD

02-20-2012, 09:34 AM

I feel that the sacrifice in l4d1 is the only DLC campaign that actually adds a bit more value to the game. CC wasn't really bad but it looked like it was just crammed inbetween NM and DT.

But the sacrifice adds gameplay value and in between these specific events it isn't even a hard campaign. People just don't find everything handed on a plate like in the 4 standard campaigns so you actually have to scavenge.

You know that the sacrifice isn't even that hard if you learn it's traps and tricks ? ? It's one of these campaigns that you need to method play on much more than in other campaings beccause you have to think of your steps as a team a bit, and not just rush to the safehouse.

The typical things in the sacrifice are:

- tank + horde in the first map
- walking start of a crescendo in the second map
- generators / sacrifice finale.

First map:

When you're trained in playing the sacrifice, the first map is even the hardest because of the tank + horde event. Lots of "random people" just try to play it like they play no mercy and that isn't gonna work out and 60-80% of the times I see pubs dying at the train tank event even in advanced mode.

You need to dedicate yourself in finding cans and pipes + stumbles as much as you caa and actually bring them to the train tank event.

You need to set everything up so you can stumble/Burn the tank and have your pipes ready. When activated you can stumble/burn tank and a few of your team will look out and actually THROW their pipes to get most of the zombies out of the way.

I see LOTS of people just waste or plain ignore all throwables in that first half and then end up with almost nothing to defend themself in that event.

Also finding autoshotties is preferable then having a 4 HR team. It's a crescendo with a massive horde and a tank and you can't play it like the Dead Air finale :P

If you survive that event with even 1 or 2 and you can get ppl out of the nearby rescue closet the rest of the map is a cakewalk.

The second map:

It's not even hard. It's your regular l4d2 ish token map where you just stay in direct contact with eachother in densly organized structures, dont shoot cars without everyone being ready and methodicly decide what you are going to do on the gravel hill crescendo, either stay in the dump elevator or go in the chute but for the love of god organize and do either of the 2, not just climb up without notifying your team mates if you want to start.

Map 3:

The finale map is useless in public only because I see lots of people just starting 2 or 3 generators at a time, throwing every pipe , burning every can and wasting any chance for cutting themself some slack.

Using more than one generator at once is nice if you want to get the achievement and adventurous in expert if have a very good team to do this in expert, We pulled it off several times but with some casualties.

The most clean way you can play this finale is just start with the most back end generator (near the dumpster). You'll always get a tank + horde or horde + tank, (it happens randomly). You just sit it out as you see what happens. If you hear a tank you just have a few team members lure him while the others are looking for SI. Then you can either fish him into constantly climbing the area near the stairs of the terrace next to the café.

Then you choose the warehouse generator. rinse and repeat. Again make sure you don't just waste every pipe for 2 zombies or do an effort not to shoot all cans, use them methodically while camping hordes and if you have something left , try to avoid using it and keep it for the escape.

Next, go to the generator near the bridge and do the same, camp the horde or fight the tank... or vice versa.

The reason for doing the bridge genrator last is to avoid as much as possible that pubs just don't come out of the warehouse and they are taking much too long to prepare for the escape. Also the tank comes first and instead of a "horde" part , you get the escape immediately.

The escape event has some specific thing to it as well. Lots of people are taking much too long to go press the button and the team doesn't know who is gonna sacrifice and everyone is standing there losing precious time while 3 tanks are approaching.

When you are an experienced sacrifice team you just hop all 4 on the bridge, decide BEFORE who will sacrifice or signal it by jumping, whatever they understand, or chat lol.

As sacrificer you can already go off as soon the bridge is lifted above the metal inflated strip in front of it. Hold left cause there will be meat seeking tank rocks, if you see it coming head right to avoid it. THat is the easiest thing.

Another team member that stays on the bridge can cover you with minigun for sacrifizzle attacks from SI. It also helps greatly that you keep a pipe bomb for your own sacrifice tour, you'll save yourself allot of trouble if you throw it as you go. In case you have a molotov, make sure you throw it in the middle of the intersection and not too close to your path if you don't want to burn your only way to the sacrificial generator :P

ps: There will be only SI in between generator events so you have a a "lul" moment. and it's not hard at all.

Keldorn

02-20-2012, 10:52 AM

I feel that the sacrifice in l4d1 is the only DLC campaign that actually adds a bit more value to the game. CC wasn't really bad but it looked like it was just crammed inbetween NM and DT.

But the sacrifice adds gameplay value and in between these specific events it isn't even a hard campaign. People just don't find everything handed on a plate like in the 4 standard campaigns so you actually have to scavenge.

You know that the sacrifice isn't even that hard if you learn it's traps and tricks ? ? It's one of these campaigns that you need to method play on much more than in other campaings beccause you have to think of your steps as a team a bit, and not just rush to the safehouse.

I know what your saying about finding everything on a plate. But I've come to a conclusion that is the best way the metagame should be setup and Valve's designers were correct in how they setup the original 4 campaigns in l4d1. the way that Crash course and Sacrifice is setup is incorrect and follows l4d2 playstyle. The act of scavenging items itself can become repetitive when you die repeatably on the same map. You start to get this feeling of ad-nausea as you find your 1 pick up pistol for the 10th time in a row. In public games this kinda of setup can break down quickly as survivors leave the group and scavenge around and start getting damaged and killed as their more vulnerable to the director's sadistic approach to harassing lone players with specials. Leading to more restarts.

As for the tank event, one thing that annoys me about that event is part of the navigation around the door is not marked "BattleField", so as your setting things up the director is spawning hoards and specials. That is the point of battlefield is to give the survivors a break from that for awhile as their setting up the crescendo. lol That kinda goes to my point about bad breaks and pacing. There is not enough parts where you can just chillax and catch a moments without being harassed from infected.

I'm one of those few who prefer the basic 4 L4D maps. To me, the two add on campaigns were made to lead the masses where they wanted them to go, L4D2.

I feel the same way too. I dont like New orleans, or the south. (No offense to anyone from there) but the theme sucks. I liked the Pennsylvania setting, ahtought I dont know why they set it during he fall, would of been better during the summer. THey probably too lazy to make new foliage models and recycled the trees from half life 2. :(

As for the fog, I have no problem with it personally. Just wish the map was set at night rather than sunset where it's still bright enough to remind me of that overrated sequel.

I nothing against day or night. But fog, I think its overused. There clearly not using it as an art style but cover up the lame draw distance that the xbox 360 can handle. :o

CosmicD

02-20-2012, 01:59 PM

they break with their "established" rules about battlefield and rescue closets all the time in new campaigns. EIther it's to make things more difficult.

WIth the rescue closets there's this dilemma of having too much camp area if they are not breakable in versus. And when In coop, it's breaking the closets all together if you're not gonna do it with elaborate logic case mounted walls and conditions. So I guess they just throw it all out of the window and not adhere to the same mechanics than in the l4d1 standard campaigns.

From a level designer point of view, I can imagine the difficulties for zombie spawning it's gonna pose when you would give that "pit" area in map 1 of the sacrifice a battlefield attribute. Then zombies would only spawn in that area and it's too tight so not many would spawn. That batlefield would have to be much much bigger , giving already the "lul" far before the drop down to the boats / train area. At least thats what I think.

I also understand you about the weapon spawns. but then again. In crash course they "introduced" the way they were going to do it in l4d2.

hammer wise, You have to completely set that up with logic cases in l4d, whereas in l4d2 you can use a weapon spawn item with a filter (t1, t2, t2 snipers, shotguns etc), and it's just easier to randomize.

but they kinda introduced that in crashcourse. It encourages everyone to "seek their own weapon". I don't have as much as a problem with that ,

Keldorn

02-20-2012, 07:50 PM

In versus the rescue doors become unbreakable and locked I believe. :p

Something just hit me about the Sacrafice. Valve did this many versions.

--- Might not make any difference.
L4D1, OS X Version
L4D2 , OS X version

This might had a negative affect on the quality of DLC for the pc version.

CosmicD

02-21-2012, 02:34 AM

Come to think of it, I actually also think that the achievements are the bad guy for some of the "bad" sacrifice behavior.

Achievements teach us to not get boomed, save someone from smoker, deadstop hunter, then they go about and give achievements such as "put all 3 generators on at once" and do the parish bridge in 3 minutes. Which is all great when you have a good team. But it sticks in people's head and many don't make the connection that it doesn't work without anything less than an uber team in expert :P So the achievements of the dlc campaigns become a bit misleading by themselves

tron00

02-21-2012, 07:15 PM

In versus the rescue doors become unbreakable and locked I believe. :p

Something just hit me about the Sacrafice. Valve did this many versions.